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iranwire.com – A child who drowned at the fishing port of Bandar Deir has been identified as seven-year-old Ali Asghar Mousavizadeh, whose 11-year-old brother Mohammad Mousavizadeh committed suicide in October.
The Young Journalists Club, which is linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting state media, reported that Mohammad Mousavizadeh had killed himself due to “poverty, not having a phone and dropping out of school.”
On the evening of Monday, November 30, the Red Crescent reported, based on eyewitness accounts, that a child had drowned at the fishing pier in Bandar Deir, despite the efforts of Deir Marine Rescue Base, which launched an operation starting at 5:15 pm. An hour later, rescue workers pulled the body of a child out of the water. They informed emergency services.
Emergency services workers said by the time they arrived on the scene the boy’s body had been out of the water for 30 minutes.
Further details are not known, and Bushehr province officials have not commented.
Double Tragedy for One Family
The death of seven-year-old Ali Asghar Mousavizadeh is the second tragedy to hit the Mousavizadeh family in less than two months. The Young Journalists Club report said: “According to the observations and objective evidence, the child was Ali Asghar Mousavizadeh, the brother of Mohammad Mousavizadeh,” the 11-year-old the agency had reported had taken his own life on October 11.
Increasingly, Iranian children are expected to use mobile phones, tablets and other devices, as well as have access to the internet, to access educational tools and online learning, and this has been particularly true during the coronavirus pandemic. For some poor families, these developments have been costly, making it impossible for their children to take part in education.
Mohammad Mousavizadeh’s suicide sparked widespread reactions, including officials denying the claim that his parents did not have access to the technology or the money required to educate their children. The director of education in Deir said in a statement that the school principal had personally given Mohammad a smartphone and so this could not have been the reason he took his own life.
Mohammad Mousavizadeh’s mother, however, said in a recorded interview first published by Rokna News Agency that “the school principal had said several times that he wanted to give a smartphone to three students, but he did not. He spoke about it, but he did nothing.” She insisted that “the only reason” for her “son’s grief” was that he did not have a phone.
Amid official denials from education officials, there were fresh reports of other students and young people committing suicide because of poverty and lack of access to technology and educational services in several other cities. Most recently, an eight-year-old girl took her life in Bandar Abbas on November 30.
